I would be grateful for any response on the following:
A property in an estate and is to be transferred to a beneficiary.
The beneficiary would like to hold the property jointly with their spouse.
Can the property be transferred directly from the estate direct to beneficiary and their spouse? Or does the property need to be transferred from the estate to the beneficiary, and then separately from the beneficiary to their spouse? Are there any aspects to consider / risks, including tax risks?
You could just implement a deed of variation to formally record the transfer, subject to the variation not creating any additional IHT liability (if applicable), Iād suggest it would not.
Where the estate administration is complete (or the PRs are of the view that the property is not required for administration) then the executors at that point hold the property on bare trust for the beneficiary (B) concerned pending assent. Following assent, I can see no reason why B could not then instruct the executors to transfer the property to B and his wife directly.
This for tax purposes would constitute a gift from B but as an inter-spouse transfer no CGT would arise.